The transfer of containers such as sample vials from their transport packaging to the laboratory workbench, workspace or an autosampler for example has conventionally been a completely manual process. Such manual handling is slow, inefficient and presents a potential source of sample contamination.
Automated systems for handling vials are known in industrial settings, such as in the pharmaceutical industry, in which a large hopper is filled with sometimes hundreds of vials that can be dispensed from the hopper to a downstream processing operation. However, such systems are designed for very large scale use and are not suitable for medium or low throughput use in transferring vials, perhaps one vial at a time, out of their small transport package to the laboratory workbench, workspace or an autosampler.
In US 2009/0254214 A is disclosed a vial dispensing system, designed for use with, for example, a medicament dispensing system, that accepts vials into a spiral delivery chute while a platter positioned below the chute is rotated in one direction to move the vials along the chute for loading. When the platter is rotated in the counter direction loaded vials may be dispensed from the chute for pick up by a vial transporting system. However, vials must still be manually handled to load them individually into the delivery chute, which is inefficient and potentially contaminates them.